Otto Donner (linguist)

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Bust of Otto Donner, made by Walter Runeberg

Otto Donner (born December 15, 1835 in Gamlakarleby , † September 17, 1909 in Helsingfors ) was a Finnish-Swedish linguist and politician . From 1875 until his death he was a professor at the University of Helsinki and in 1883 played a key role in founding the Finnish-Ugric Society . Between 1877 and 1905 he was a member of the Reichstag and from 1905 to 1908 Minister of Education.

Despite his Swedish mother tongue , Donner was a supporter of so-called fennomania , which campaigned for the development of Finnish as the national language .

Life

Otto Donner was born in the province of Ostrobothnia and was a member of a wealthy Finnish-Swedish family that grew in influence in the Grand Duchy of Finland . Several family members have played an important role in Finnish politics and culture over time . His parents were the shipowner Kommerzienrat Andreas Donner and Olava Matilda Dahlström. Donner's sons were the financial expert and ambassador Ossian Donner and the linguist Kai Donner . The British MP Sir Patrick William Donner, the scientists Kai Otto Donner and Joakim Donner, and the writer and politician Jörn Donner are his grandsons.

Donner died in the capital Helsingfors, where he is buried in the Hietaniemi cemetery.

Donner's work as a linguist

Otto Donner on a photograph

Otto Donner began his studies of the Finnish language and modern literature at the Imperial Alexander University of Finland (now University of Helsinki) in 1857, reaching 1,861 to Lizenziatabschluss . He also learned Sanskrit on the side . As a student, he was fascinated by Matthias Alexander Castrén's approach to investigate the Urals linguistic history with the methods of historical-comparative linguistics. In 1864 he was in Helsinki with a thesis on the ideas of the Indians on the creation of the world, compared with those of the Finns (1863) PhD . The work compares the epics Mahābhārata and Kalevala . He then continued his studies in Sanskrit and linguistics at the universities in Berlin , Tübingen , Paris and London . In 1870 Donner was appointed Finland's first private lecturer in Sanskrit and Comparative Linguistics by the University of Helsinki . In 1875 he was appointed to the same university as an associate professor ("Extra Ordinarie") for Sanskrit and Indo-European studies .

Although Donner was primarily concerned with Indology in his early research, since his dissertation he has also focused on Finnish prehistory . Influenced by the awakened Finnish national movement, his research led him more and more to the field of the Finno-Ugric and even the Ural - Altaic languages . This interest is also expressed in the scientific expeditions to Central Asia initiated by Donner - and even privately financed - the results of which he published in several books.

The mutual kinship of the Finnish-Ugric languages (1880), in which he argues against Josef Budenz for a close kinship between the Sami and Baltic Finnish languages , must be mentioned among his other important works in Ural Studies . In the writing Om finnarnes forna boningsplatser i östra Ryssland (1875) (German "About the early places of residence of the Finns in Eastern Russia") he used the methods of so-called "linguistic paleontology ". As early as 1878, Donner expressed the later generally accepted view that the level change in Finno-Ugric languages ​​goes back to the Ural proto-language. Donner's work was also important for research into Finnish mythology and folklore , especially his book Lieder der Lappen (1876), which uses the notes of Anders Fjellner . His three-volume comparative dictionary of the Finnish-Ugric languages (1874–1888), on the other hand, was viewed as unsuccessful by later research.

One of his most important achievements as a Finnish scientist was the establishment of the Finnish-Ugric Society in 1883 , which he headed for many years as chairman. Donner saw as one of the most important tasks of the society in the systematic promotion of linguistic field research on the at that time little or not yet researched Urals and neighboring peoples in the Asian part of Russia. He also served as secretary and deputy chairman of the Finnish Antiquities Society ( Finska fornminnesföreningen in Swedish ), whose collections were incorporated into the National Museum of Finland , which was later founded .

Donner's research and teaching had a great influence on the work of his then students and later very influential scientists Eemil Nestor Setälä , Gustaf John Ramstedt , Heikki Paasonen , Artturi Kannisto , Julio Reuter and not least his son Kai Donner .

Donner's role as a politician

From 1861 to 1866 Donner worked alongside his academic work as an editor for the Helsinki daily Helsingfors Tidningar . Between 1877 and 1905 he was a member of the priesthood of the clergy ( Prästeståndet ) in the state council . After the Finnish general strike of 1905, he was Minister of Education in Leo Mechelin's Administrative Council for Finland until 1908 . In this role he also made a name for himself as an opponent of the attempted forced recruitment of Finns into the Imperial Russian Army , for which he was even fined.

Fonts (selection)

  • 1863 Indernas föreställningar om verldsskapelsen, jemförda med finnarnes
  • 1865 The personal pronoun in the Altaic languages. I. The Finnish languages
  • 1872 Öfversikt af den Finsk Ugriska sprakforskningens historia
  • 1876 songs of the rag
  • 1892 Inscriptions de l'Iéisseï
  • 1892 Dictionary of the Inscriptions de l'Iéisseï

literature

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hietaniemen hautausmaa - merkittäviä vainajia (Helsingin seurakuntayhtymä)
  2. ↑ Page 230 in Timo Salminen: In between research, the ideology of ethnic affinity and foreign policy. The Finno-Ugrian Society and Russia from the 1880s to the 1940s . In: Jussi Ylikoski (Ed.): The Quasquicentennial of the Finno-Ugrian Society (=  Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia . Volume 258 ). Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura, Helsinki 2009, ISBN 978-952-5667-12-7 , pp. 225-262 .
  3. ↑ Tibore Fazekas (2001) "Finno-Ugric Philology and Comparative Grammar" In: History of Linguistics Edited by Sylvain Auroux, EFK Koerner, Hans-Josef Niederehe, Kees Versteegh. P. 1310.
  4. ↑ Korhonen 1989: 247-248

Web links

Wikisource: Otto Donner  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Donner, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Finnish-Swedish linguist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1835
PLACE OF BIRTH Gamlakarleby
DATE OF DEATH 17th September 1909
Place of death Helsingfors